Path of Dreams
by Shauna1
Summary: A younger Aragorn finds solace along the Olore Malle (Path of Dreams) after leading the Rangers through a disastrous battle in the North.


Olore Malle: Path of Dreams  
  
***  
  
The air was neither night nor day,  
an ever-eve of gloaming light,  
when first there glimmered into sight  
the Little House of Play.  
New-built it was, yet very old,  
white, and thatched with straws of gold,  
and pierced with peeping lattices  
that looked towards the sea;  
and our own children's garden plots-  
were there: our own forgetmenots,  
red daisies, cress and mustard,  
and radishes for tea.  
  
- "Mar Vanwa Tyalieva (The Little House of Lost Play)" JRR Tolkien  
  
***  
  
A chieftan cannot, will not sleep until the last man is accounted for, whether he be late returning from the forest or found with upturned face and blank eyes upon the ground. Aragorn son of Arathorn and Chieftan of the Dunedain paced the field, keeping a tally of the orcs slewn and searching for his comrades. At the sight of a common Ranger, no less then at the sight of a captain would he grimace and then snarl, thrusting his sword down into the chest of an orc and twisting until its cold blood trickled afresh into the grass.  
  
He was told that a leader must remain strong, but to Aragorn it seemed a better show of strength to admit his grief. At least his men would know he did not risk them lightly. Their deaths were wounds - not mere scratches - and to ignore pain is folly, and sure to increase it in the end.  
  
To ignore his pain - his guilt - his ignorance. For it was his ineptitude, not his bad luck, that cost the lives of his men. Had he but kept to the plan they had made, had he but held them silent on the edges of the forest, whisperless and waiting for the orcs to arrive...  
  
But he had seen the smoke from a nearby village, too thick to come through a fireplace, and had heard faint screams. From the Northeast, from the enemy. No Ranger had refused him when he ordered them to move towards the cries, yet wariness marked their eyes if not their steps.  
  
And when they reached the cottages, all but one was consumed in flame, all but one had dead villagers stacked and burning by the door. All but one. Alone he walked into it.  
  
It seemed larger inside then out, and the dishes on the front table untouched. Nor was any of the little finery stolen, nor even mud tracked on the floor. But round the table sat two dead little boys and one dead little girl. Dark her hair was, as is common in the north, but lustrous and curling around her face, falling in soft waves even as blood trickled down from her slit throat and stained her frock.   
  
He stumbled out of the cottage even as the ambush began.  
  
White with shock and anger he fought better then he had ever before, though in the past he had wielded his sword like a man of legend. As the orcs came barreling from the bushes he killed the first three with a single swing. He screamed out a battle cry, and the beasts howled back, impatient from their hiding and rushing headlong to their deaths. He slew many, and looked for more. Most other Rangers fared near as good as he.  
  
Yet Brandir and Baradin looked up, startled, when it began, and were not ready. They were thrust through a the dull orc spear, and Hadrir rushing to help was killed as well.  
  
This Aragorn learned as he walked the fields, his men behind him. He did not turn to face them. What could he read in their eyes but contempt for him and bitter mourning for their friends? And regret, self-guilt which they did not deserve, as they asked themselves, why did we follow this young chief? Why did we waste our blood for him?  
  
But as the three fallen Rangers were covered and blessed, he saw in the others' gazes pity. Pity? Ah, a reminder of the harsh punishment that awaited when they returned home - if they returned home - if they had a home. The punishment of unrestrained grief, the wailing of children that triggered somewhere in the depths of his memory a feeling of shaking in Gilraen's arms, while she lamented her husband Arathorn's death.   
  
Tired, he was, so tired he could not even wash himself but laid down bloody on the blanket-covered rocks. It froze at night in the North, ice covering their sleeping faces like dew, a faint remembrance of Helcaraxe in its chill glory. Yet Aragorn refused a tent, and often slept with his coverings below him. He liked to watch the dark sky, speckled with light, starkindled. His father - Elrond, not his real father - had taught him the placings of the tiny white flames. And when he and Elrohir and Elladen traveled they'd try to count them. If they could not, they would laugh, and sing their praises to Varda, Starkindler, Queen of the Valar, most common known as Elbereth. And when Aragorn was alone he would look across the sky and try to trace a path.  
  
But this night he spared not his time for childish musings or play. He stared straight up with haggard eyes at Earendil, brightest of stars, and prayed.  
  
'Aran i rimbe eleni,' he said silently, which meant king of the many stars, 'guide me by your light. I am lost in my pride and my regret.'   
  
Breathing heavily he reached back in his mind for pictures of Imaldris and his Undomiel, and found them not so fair for it being him that loved them. The stones dug into his back like blades and he relished the pain. And if they had truly been knives he might have welcomed them. As it were they slowed the fading, the fading into sleep like ever days did into black nights such as these.  
  
At last his tired muscles were overcome by weariness, his senses become numb to the reek of graves and half-whispered condolences shared by men.  
  
'Earendil, guide me, please,' he thought desperately yet drowsily, 'or gentle Este, grant me rest.'  
  
*  
  
But it seemed to him that even as he succumbed to sleep he was waking again, and standing. And when he stood he rose up into the darkness, piercing it. The black fog fell away, or rather became white mist which clung to his throat. Coughing, he began to walk.  
  
As he traveled the mist moved with him. Or perhaps he moved through it, he could not tell. Naught seemed to change as he went, and he went for a while, yet he did not grow weary of it. At last he felt the earth beneath his feet change from rocky dirt to sand.  
  
Looking up, he saw the alignment of stars had changed. He gasped at their strange patterns, for he could not have come so far - could he?   
  
When he lowered his head the missed had dissipated, and he was following a slender path over a beach. Something faint and wonderful greeted his ears and hurried his steps.  
  
It was a music as pure as that he had ever heard, like to the music of Iluvatar. Though that could not be. A single melody sung out in endless variety, accented by the lapping of the sea against the glistening shore and the chirrups of birds in the garden, but led by the voices of children but a little way down the path.  
  
He walked faster, his body no longer aching, his worry turned to wonder.  
  
On the bank overlooking the water began a forest, and on the edge of the forest yet not to near the cliff stood a tiny house filled with dozens of tiny people. As he drew closer he saw a girl familiar. It was the child from the village, her skin pale and clean, her dress untorn and woven with flowers. Her dark hair was shining, touched by the light of trees. She sang with the others, not the slow melodious song of an elf-child but to the short, beautiful tunes of the daughters of men.  
  
'We wander shyly hand in hand  
small footprints in the golden sand  
we dig for silver with out spades  
and run ashore through sleepy glades'  
  
And as she sang she grabbed the hands of the boys beside her, and they danced. It was at the same instant clumsy yet graceful, as if the heedless stumblings of happy children were made as lovely as their faces.  
  
Aragorn felt exquisitely the blood caked on his hands, and the mud that adorned his shoes. His heart ached with the desire to join, but he was also content, content to watch them play unbothered and unsullied.  
  
They continued and never tired of it, and neither did Aragorn tire of watching. He could not mark the time for it was constant dusk. Yet it seemed to him he was looking for a lifetime. At times they pantomimed the ceremonies of dwarves and elves and most of all mankind, pretending to be king and queen. More often they copied the animals, leaping and waving their arms like birds or rolling on the ground and scurrying like the small and furred. And still they spent the greatest part of the time acting not at all, but only were themselves, embracing the music.  
  
Finally the girl ended both the dance and the song, and as she did the other children - and even the birds and the breezes - became still. Solemnly she walked to Aragorn, and held out her hand. When he stood there unmoving her eyes grew moist and sorrowful until at last he reached out trembling to take her hand. And then she laughed as though it had been a game and only a pretense of sadness, and Aragorn laughed with her.  
  
Many songs they sang together, and the Dunadan danced with them, clambering down to his knees to give them rides and then lifting them up, or spinning and falling, shrieking, to the grass. He raised a little boy into the night who yelled gleefully at the stars and then whispered into his ear a rhyme:  
  
'we're side by side a little pair  
with heads together and mingled hair!'  
  
The boy sang it again, louder and sweeter, and looked pleased. Aragorn kissed his cheek and set him down. But when he turned to pick up the next child he found he was outside the gate, and all the children still within.  
  
And dusk had changed to night time, and little stars like lamps were set out to light his path away.  
  
*  
  
He awoke, shivering, clutching at the blankets caught beneath his back. Even as he opened his eyes to the early morning he stilled himself. The quiet sounds of the Rangers breaking camp slipped into his conciousness, but he struggled not to relinquish his dream.  
  
It had been more a memory than a dream. That was impossible, though. There had been nothing in his childhood akin to that happy frenzy, only Elrond's kindness and the slow sweetness of elven songs.  
  
For a moment he let himself recall the feeling of unreflective joy. Then he rose and folded up his blanket, ignoring its distinct smell and its grainy feel upon his skin.  
  
"Aragorn," said a young man behind him, one of the few Rangers with less years to his name then Aragorn, though as was custom out in the forest he gave no honorific. "When do you wish to leave?"  
  
"Has all been cleared? And the men buried?" Aragorn asked. The Ranger nodded. "Then we shall leave immediately. There is no reason to stay in this place."   
  
And though there was loathing in his voice for those who had destroyed the village, he felt no longer desperate with guilt. Regret, yes, but not guilt. And though he was tired of riding through striken lands fighting uncountable enemies, he felt not overcome with weariness. He was uncertain of the future, but not lost.  
  
The Rangers climbed swiftly onto their horses, yet before he could follow he felt compelled to check something. He headed to the edge of the village, to the one remaining cottage.  
  
He was not sure what he had expected. Along one of the side walls were mounds of dirt where the children had been buried.  
  
There were three - for each of the innocents who had died along with their village. Three - two slightly bigger for the boys, and one slightly smaller for the girl. A ribbon from her hair marked the grave.  
  
"Aragorn?" one of the Rangers said in calm query.  
  
Then the dream was nothing - or maybe the mound meant nothing. Had he gone anywhere last night besides inside himself? What type of beast was he to find solace in fantasy when his men were barely cold in the rocky ground?  
  
"Aragorn?" the Ranger asked again.  
  
Aragorn turned back towards him, mounted his horse, and rode away.  
  
***  
  
"There was a light there as of summer evening, save only when the silver lamps were kindled on the hill at dusk, and then little lights of white would dance and quiver on the paths, chasing black shadow-dapples under the trees. This was a time of joy to the children, for it was mostly at this hour that a new comrade would come down the lane called Olore Malle or the Path of Dreams..." - Vaire "The Cottage of Lost Play" JRR Tolkien  
  
***  
***  
  
A/N As you might have guessed, the idea for this story comes from Tolkien, from the first tale of the first book of the History of Middle Earth series. Very early on in his writings Tolkien came up with the idea of a cottage in the land of the Valar where the "children of the fathers of the fathers of men" came in their sleep along the path of dreams. These stories were soon discarded, and have little place in the Tolkienverse - but as it is the nature of all dreams to be uncertain, I have not labelled this AU. It is up to the reader, as it was for Aragorn, to decide what they think really happened.  
  
A/N 2 The names of the Rangers are variations of names from the Silmarillion. Sorry if that's implausible but I just could not bear to humilate myself by trying to find three names similar to 'Strider'. What? Walker? Swaggerer? Hardly. As for the Valar that Aragorn prays to, Este is the healer of hurts. Her spouse, with whom she dwells in his gardens, is Lorien. In the rough drafts where the idea of Olore Malle is written out, it is Lorien the Vala who makes the path of dreams.  
  
A/N 3 All poems and rhymes contained whithin the story are part of "Mar Vanwa Tyalieva (The Little House of Lost Play)" which I found in Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales 1. 


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